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Japan said Thursday it would aim to launch its first
magnetic levitation (Maglev) rail service in 2025 as it starts to
phase out the famed Shinkansen "bullet" trains.
The commercial service, which can hit top speeds of more than 500
kilometres (310 miles) per hour, will be run by Central Japan
Railway Co. (JR Tokai) between Tokyo and the central city of Nagoya.
"We will take the initiative ourselves in putting into reality
a means of transport replacing the Shinkansen," JR Tokai
president Masayuki Matsumoto told a news conference.
In an annual earnings report, the company said the Tokyo-Nagoya
Maglev service would be the "first phase" of its grand
project to build a new super-fast trunk line stretching to Japan's
second city of Osaka via Nagoya.
It added that the existing bullet train system has reached its
limits in terms of technology and transportation capacity.
JR Tokai has been testing Maglev cars since 1996 on a trial track in
Yamanashi, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Tokyo.
In December 2003, a Maglev test car there achieved a world record of
581 kilometres (361 miles) per hour for a train.
It compared with the world record of 574.8 kilometers (357.2 miles)
per hour for a train on traditional rails achieved last April by a
specially built French TGV train on the Paris-Strasbourg line.
JR Tokai said the 18-kilometre (11-mile) trial track would be
expanded to 43 kilometres (27 miles) for further tests on its Maglev
cars.
China currently operates the world's only commercial application of
the Maglev, a line running 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Shanghai's
airport to the financial centre in Pudong district.
Last September, a test Maglev train in Germany crashed into a
maintenance vehicle, killing 23 people, while travelling at about
170 kilometres (106 miles) per hour on a trial track.
-- AFP
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